ASA GRAY. 323 



original papers of his own, of which his memoir on Rhynchospora may 

 be said to be his first contribution to descriptive botany. His connec- 

 tion with Bartlett's School ended early in 1835, and, although the finan- 

 cial condition of the New York Medical School did not permit his 

 continuing as assistant of Dr. Torrey, he returned to New York in the 

 autumn of 1835, and accepted the position of curator and librarian of 

 the Lyceum of Natural History, — a position which gave him leisure 

 for continuing his botanical studies, and to prepare his first test-book, 

 " Elements of Botany," which appeared in 1836. 



About this time a Government expedition, since known as the 

 Wilkes Exploring Expedition, was fitting out, and the position of bota- 

 nist of the expedition was offered to Dr. Gray in the summer of 1836. 

 The expedition did not sail, however, until two years later ; and 

 meanwhile, wearied by the numerous delays and uncertainties about 

 the management of the expedition, Dr. Gray resigned his position and 

 settled in New York, where, in company with Dr. Torrey, he worked 

 energetically on the preparation of the earlier parts of the " Flora," 

 of which the first two parts appeared in October, 1838. While occupied 

 in this work, a new State University had been founded in Michigan, 

 and Dr. Gray accepted the chair of botany which was offered to him, 

 with the understanding that he should be allowed to spend a year 

 abroad in study before beginning his official duties. 



The elaboration of the new "Flora" made it necessary for him to 

 examine the types of American plants in foreign herbaria ; and in 

 November, 1838, he started on the journey which was not only to give 

 him the means of clearing up much of the existing confusion with re- 

 gard to the identity of previously described North American species, 

 but, what was more important, was to bring him into close scientific and 

 social relations with the botanical lights of a generation now long past, 

 and with those who were then the young men of promise, a brilliant 

 group, of which Sir J. D. Hooker and A. De Candolle are now almost 

 the only survivors. 



He returned to America in November, 1839, but never assumed the 

 duties of Professor at Michigan. He was absorbed in his work on the 

 " Flora," and, refreshed and stimulated by what he had seen and heard 

 abroad, he was pushing rapidly ahead with the second volume, of which 

 he wrote the greater portion, and at the same time printing a " Bo- 

 tanical Text-Book," which was to form the basis of his many subse- 

 quent text-books, when he was invited to Cambridge to fill the newly 

 endowed chair of the Fisher Professorship of Natural History in Har- 

 vard College. 



